We are in Douala, Cameroon, which is about 21/2 hours by plane away from our mission home in Kinshasa DR Congo. It is a separate country with a different Visa. North American missionaries who are called to this mission come directly here to our city, or Yaounde or Pointe Noire, which are the other two outlying cities. We are there to pick them up when they arrive and we put them on the plane when they go home. They use our computers to Skype with the mission president for their first interview. We have always said that the best part of our mission is our association with these young Elders. Sister Gailey calls there moms when they arrive to let them know they have arrived safely. She lets them know that they have a nice apartment and that we are here to watch over them. They seem to get a lot of comfort from the calls.
Every 6 weeks we have Zone Conference at our apartment. They come for a couple of hours of training and then we feed them. The mission president comes to it about every other time. It is amazing how much these growing young men can eat.
One of the hardest parts of our calling is when they transfer or go home. Some of them are with us for up to 10 months before they leave our two districts. We get very attached to them. Elder Andrimamonjy is from Madascar and went home a few weeks ago. They don’t get to go to the mission home for a farewell dinner, so we have one for them here at our apartment. We have a testimony meeting and their favorite meal. The testimony meeting is always very tender. They have their exit interview with the mission president on his last visit before they go home.
We love picking up our new missionaries at the airport. We picked up our first 18 year old a couple weeks ago. On the left is Elder Wright from St George. He is 19. Next to him is Elder Beutler from Mapleton, by Provo, and is 18 years old. We try to be waiting for them when they come out of the airport so they see some white faces. We remember how scary it was for us when we saw the sea of black faces.
This is the missionaries saying goodby to Elder Andrimamonjy. We will all miss him. He was such a cute fun Elder and a great missionary. His girlfriend from Madagascar is serving in Salt Lake City.
Elder Andrimamonjy and Elder Colindres, from West Valley, walking to a teaching appointment on a typical road in the neighborhoods.
Of course, the main reason all of us are here is to bring people to Christ. Here are our Elders with the Branch Mission Leader at a baptism next to the font. The sister was baptized by Hermann, who is now on a mission himself in the Ivory Coast.
It is really hard for the Elders to keep their shoes shined when they walk in these conditions every day. They never complain, even when they show up to church soaking wet from a sudden rain storm.
Pres. and Sister Jameson are from Phoenix AZ. They served for 18 months in the Congo as a couple missionary and then went home for 4 months to get ready to come back as the president of the DR Congo Mission. They were here for the first 9 months for our mission. We really loved them from their first visit to our home. They took us all out to eat for pizza the last day they were in Cameroon. We were very sad to see them go, but were so happy that they could spend time with their family after 31/2 years in Africa.
Pres. and Sister Cook are our new mission president and his wife. They are from Providence, by Logan. We are enjoying getting to know them.
Our missionaries love to play soccer with the Africans here. They make a lot of new friends that way and invite them to church. Many times they come. It seems like it rains every time they play. They fields are dirt and turn into mud which makes it even more fun. They are too intense for us to play with them, so we just watch.
Transfer days are always crazy for us with trips to the bus station, the airport and to the apartments to get them situated. When we are short an Elder, a local young man is called as a branch missionary and serves full time for 6 weeks. Bartholemew on the left is a branch missionary. Elder Gelinas is from Canada. On the right of me is Elder Leavitt. He was suppose to go to Yaounde, but got off the plane in Douala before it continued on to Younde. He spent a couple of days with us before we put him on the bus with Elder Graham who is next to him. He will hear about that for the rest of his mission. He was a real good sport about it, but had us pretty confused when he called at 10:30 and asked why we weren’t at the airport to pick him up.
Elder Thibault, from Provo, finally caught an unwelcome house guest that would run across the floor while they studied. He was released to the outside world. I think.
On Pres. Jameson’s last visit to Cameroon, he was on a really tight schedule, so we had the 10 Elders from Yaounde, along with the senior couple, the Whitesides, ride the bus to Douala and stay with us and the Elders here. We had a combined Zone Conference with all of us in our apartment. There were 24 of us in our living room and Sister Gailey fed them all sloppy joes and chips.
We are so excited that missionaries are now going out from our mission to serve in other countries in Africa. This is Hermann and Yannick. We had the privilege of teaching the temple prep classes to help prepare them for their missions. Hermann is in the Ivory Coast and Yannick is in the Congo. They will be such strong leaders when they return from their missions.
Our missionaries are always looking for opportunities to serve. We were on our way back from helping a family move and Elder Zurcher and Elder Garland saw this man with a cart of lumber he was struggling to pull up this road, so they jumped out and helped him up the hill.
Elder Zurcher, from Providence Ut.,carries a load of bananas on his head like the Africans would carry them.
There is not a lot of fun things to do here, so every 6 months we do an excursion with the missionaries to the ocean in Kribi or in Limbe on their p-day. They need a break from the craziness once in a while too. They can’t swim, but love to play frisby and football on the beach.
Elders Garland, Graham, Lafleur, and Mupungu coming to the church for teaching appointments.
Every 6 months the Elders have to go to the capital, Yaounde, to renew their visas. We took Elders Ramgelosoam and Porter on this trip to renew theirs. We drove up to Mount Febe which over looks the city of Yaounde. Elder Holland was here just before we came, last year and dedicated Cameroon for the preaching of the gospel from this rock where we are standing.
Our Elders are still young men and they are a lot of fun. The people here just love them and feel as bad as we do when they leave the area.
For the missionaries, the best part of us being here is the meals that Sister Gailey prepares for them. We normally only feed them at Zone Conference, but when ever they come over Sister Gailey pulls out cookies or banana bread to give to them. They are so cute. They tell us they love us, and are always telling us how much they appreciate all that we do for them. It doesn’t seem like we do that much, but they appreciate every thing that we do. We do repairs on their apartments also and buy supplies for them so they don’t have to do it all in a taxi or on foot.
We sometimes go out teaching with the Elders. Elder Porter and Elder Prince took us to the Elle family, because they wanted us to teach them how to have a good marriage since we have been married for 37 years. They act so honored that we would come to their humble home in the background on the left. Sister Gailey taught Gabrielle how to make chocolate cake in a dutch oven over some coals and they thought it was wonderful.
Elders Hoiland, Rambelosoam, Porter, Addington, Lafleur, and Prince were our very first missionaries. Elder Schmid and Lavering are not in the picture, but these 8 missionaries helped us adjust to life in Africa. We would not have survived with out them. We have had 22 different Elders that we have served with in Douala. We are constantly amazed at what noble young men they are and how dedicated they are to serving the Lord. Their white shirts become much less white as time goes on. They are often wringing wet with sweat and have mud on their pants and shoes. They eat things that we won’t and brag about it. They never complain and are so obedient that we never worry about what they are doing. They are doing a great work here and bringing many of our brothers and sisters into the gospel and saving their souls. We are so proud to serve with them.
